David didn't go downstairs again.
Not immediately.
He stood at the top of the stairs, staring at the paper in his hand.
GENEVA — 28 OCTOBER 2026.
THEY WILL MOVE AT 09:20.
Beneath it, the warning still looked impossibly fresh.
And this time, David, don't let them find you.
He wanted to believe it was a prank. An elaborate one, perhaps, arranged by someone at the Northern Communications Authority.
But that explanation had a problem.
Nobody at the Authority knew he would be alone in the control room at 03:14. Nobody had access to his name through the old console. And nobody could have printed a message from a machine that wasn't connected to a computer.
He checked his phone again.
No signal.
David opened the station's internal directory and found the emergency contact number for regional operations.
He dialled.
The call failed.
He tried a second time.
Nothing.
"Fine."
He put the phone away.
If someone had entered the station, there had to be evidence. If the system had malfunctioned, there had to be a record. And if someone was playing a game with him, they had made a mistake somewhere.
David was an engineer.
He trusted evidence.
He returned to the control room and locked the door.
Then he began investigating.
The perimeter alarm had left no trace in the main event log.
David checked the secondary security database.
Nothing.
He checked the power records.
No interruption.
He checked the camera server.
Every camera had been operational during the alleged breach, yet the archive contained no footage of a person or vehicle approaching the fence.
He opened the live feed for Zone 4.
The southeastern fence stood beneath a row of white lamps. Snow covered the ground on both sides.
David enlarged the image.
There.
A section of snow appeared disturbed near one of the fence posts.
He adjusted the contrast.
The image sharpened.
Something had dragged through the snow, leaving a narrow trail that ended at the fence.
David leaned closer.
There were no footprints leading towards it.
He switched to the previous camera recording.
The disturbance was already there.
He went back another hour.
Still there.
He checked the previous evening.
The trail appeared in the footage at 18:42.
He checked the timestamp against the system clock.
Correct.
Whatever had disturbed the snow had done so before he arrived at the control room.
David looked at the fence again.
Then he noticed the date of the recording.
17 JUNE 2001.
He checked it twice.
The camera footage was twenty-five years old.
Yet the snow on the ground was moving.
Not blowing in the wind.
Moving against it.
David watched as a thin layer of snow slid slowly towards the fence, collecting around the post. The movement lasted three seconds.
Then the footage ended.
He sat motionless.
He opened the recording details.
SOURCE: ARCHIVE REPLAY
So it wasn't live footage.
Someone had loaded an old recording into the current camera feed.
That was possible. A remote operator could have accessed the system.
David checked the network status.
EXTERNAL CONNECTION: DISABLED.
He checked the access log.
No remote session.
He checked the file's properties.
The original recording had been created on 17 June 2001.
The latest modification had occurred at 03:14 that morning.
David's mouth went dry.
He opened the modification details.
The file had been altered by a user account called REMOTE SYSTEM.
The same account he had discovered earlier.
David searched for the account's creation date.
The database returned an error.
He tried again.
The screen went black.
A moment later, a single line appeared.
STOP LOOKING OUTSIDE.
David stared at the words.
He didn't touch the keyboard.
Another line appeared.
LOOK INSIDE.
The screen returned to normal.
For a long time, David sat without moving.
Then he closed the camera feed.
He had come here to catalogue old records.
He would catalogue the records.
And he would find out who—or what—was altering them.
The archive terminal took forty seconds to load.
David searched for Station Nine's original commissioning documents.
The first records dated to 1968, when the facility had been built to process long-range satellite telemetry. Most of the documents were technical and unremarkable.
Then he found the personnel reports.
The station had employed dozens of technicians over the decades.
Most had transferred to other facilities.
Some had retired.
Three records were marked as sealed.
One belonged to Elias Ward, a signals technician who had died on 17 June 1975.
David opened the associated incident report.
CAUSE OF DEATH: UNDETERMINED.
There were no medical findings, no witness statements and no details of where the body had been found.
The final entry read:
ALL ASSOCIATED TELEMETRY RECORDS TO BE RETAINED UNDER RESTRICTED CLASSIFICATION.
David searched for the date.
17 June 1975.
Then he opened the archived transmission log for that day.
At 03:14, Station Nine had received an unidentified signal.
The first report described it as interference.
The second described it as an unexplained carrier.
The third contained a handwritten note.
The transmission appears to contain information not yet available to the station.
David scrolled.
A page had been attached to the report.
It contained a list of diplomatic movements in Geneva.
The date of the movements was 7 July 1975.
Twenty days after the transmission.
David felt a chill pass through him.
He checked the next report.
The movements had occurred as predicted.
The report after that described a second transmission, followed by another prediction.
Again, twenty days.
He searched the archive for more instances.
The results stretched across decades.
Different dates. Different diplomatic delegations. The same city.
Geneva.
And always the same twenty-day interval.
David opened the newest matching record.
08 OCTOBER 2026.
It contained a single entry.
DELEGATION MOVEMENT CONFIRMED.
The next field was empty.
No names.
No country.
No destination.
David stared at the screen.
Whatever had sent the prediction tonight had not provided enough information to identify the people involved.
But the system had classified it as confirmed.
How could it confirm an event that had not happened yet?
He checked the record's author.
REMOTE SYSTEM.
He opened the account details.
The screen flickered.
A new file appeared in the search results.
It wasn't a transmission log.
It was a personnel record.
MILLER, DAVID.
David stopped breathing for a moment.
He opened it.
His date of birth was correct. His university qualifications were correct. His employment history was correct.
Then he reached the final section.
PREVIOUS ASSIGNMENT: STATION NINE.
DATE: 17 JUNE 2001.
David was five years old in 2001.
He read the entry again.
Then he checked the record's source.
It had been created in 2001.
Not tonight.
Not yesterday.
Twenty-five years ago.
He searched for the original paper file.
The archive listed a location.
VAULT C.
David looked towards the basement stairs.
He remembered the locked door.
He remembered the voice.
He remembered the three knocks.
He didn't want to go down there.
But the paper file was the first piece of physical evidence he had found.
He needed to see it.
Vault C opened on the first swipe.
David stood in the doorway, waiting for something to happen.
Nothing did.
The room was smaller than he had expected. Metal shelves lined the walls, holding boxes of documents and reels of magnetic tape. A single fluorescent tube flickered overhead.
He found the box number from the archive catalogue.
C-2001-06.
Inside were maintenance reports, access records and several sealed envelopes.
The personnel file was at the bottom.
David removed it carefully.
His name was printed on the cover.
Beneath it was a date.
17 JUNE 2001.
The file contained three pages.
The first was an incident summary.
The second was a list of names, most of them redacted.
The third was a photograph.
David pulled it out.
Five adults stood outside Station Nine's main entrance.
The photograph was faded, but the building was unmistakable. The same concrete walls. The same reinforced entrance. The same number painted above the door.
09.
A small child stood in front of the group.
He wore a red winter coat.
David felt his stomach tighten.
He knew that coat.
He had seen it in an old family photograph, tucked away in a drawer at his mother's house.
He turned the photograph over.
A handwritten note was visible on the back.
Station Nine, 17 June 2001.
The day we brought him home.
David read it again.
The day we brought him home.
He looked at the child.
The face was rounder, the hair lighter, but the eyes were unmistakable.
They were his.
David took out his phone and photographed the image. Then he opened his family album, which he had downloaded years ago.
He found the old photograph of himself in the red coat.
The same child.
The same face.
The same small scar above the left eyebrow.
His own scar.
He lowered the phone.
He had never been to Station Nine.
He had never even heard of the place before accepting the assignment.
At least, he had never remembered it.
His hands began to tremble.
He turned back to the group of adults.
The man standing on the child's left wore a dark coat and looked directly at the camera. The image was too faded to make out his features clearly.
The woman beside him had her hand resting on the child's shoulder.
David couldn't identify her.
But the final adult stood slightly apart from the others, half hidden behind the entrance.
He was holding a folder.
David leaned closer.
There was something familiar about the man's face.
Not because David recognized him.
Because the man looked like someone David might become.
The same narrow jaw.
The same deep-set eyes.
The same slight tilt of the head.
David's own face, aged by thirty years.
He turned the photograph over again, searching for another note.
Nothing.
Then he noticed a small label in the bottom corner.
IMAGE 09-117.
The same number as the 1975 transmission report.
David's phone vibrated.
He nearly dropped it.
A message had appeared on the screen.
No sender.
No number.
Just six words.
YOU FOUND THE WRONG PHOTOGRAPH, DAVID.
He stared at the message.
Another arrived.
LOOK AT THE WOMAN.
David raised the photograph.
He examined the woman standing beside the child.
Her face was partially obscured by a shadow from the entrance.
He adjusted the brightness on his phone and enlarged the image.
The details sharpened.
The woman's eyes.
Her nose.
The faint line across her forehead.
David stopped.
He knew that face.
He had seen it every day of his childhood.
In the family photographs.
In the old videos.
In the memories he had carried for thirty years.
His mother.
But there was something wrong.
The photograph was dated June 2001.
David's mother had died in February 1999.
He looked at the picture again.
The woman had her hand on the child's shoulder.
And she was looking directly at David.
Not at the camera.
At him.
His phone vibrated once more.
A final message appeared.
ASK YOUR FATHER WHAT HAPPENED ON 17 JUNE 2001.
David stood frozen in the vault.
Then, from somewhere deep beneath the floor, came three slow knocks.
And a woman's voice whispered through the ventilation grille.
"David?"
He dropped the photograph.
The voice came again.
This time, he recognized it.
It was his mother's.
"Don't let him take you home."